Chapter 6
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Debugging, analyzing, and optimizing files 59
Documenting database schemas
Use the Database Design Report (DDR) feature to document the
schema of your database and publish it to an HTML or XML file. You
can choose which elements and database tables in the database you
want to report. The HTML version of the report is hyperlinked and
you can view or print it in a Javascript-enabled web browser.
With the Database Design Report feature you can:
1 examine a textual representation of your database schema
1 gather statistics on the structure of your database
1 use the information in the report to recreate the structure of your
database if you lose the original database files
1 troubleshoot missing references, broken relationships,
calculations, and more
A Database Design Report in HTML format includes a Report
Overview that provides a snapshot of the elements in each database
file. The Report Overview contains hyperlinks to details about all
elements in each database file. A Database Design Report in XML
format contains the same information, ready to be transformed into
the format you require. You can create tools that can use the DDR
XML to analyze or process the structure of databases. For more
information, download the FileMaker
Pro Advanced Database
Design Report XML Output Grammar
PDF, available at
www.filemaker.com/downloads.
To create a Database Design Report:
1. Open all database files for which you want to produce a Database
Design Report.
You must have full access privileges for any file for which you want
to produce a Database Design Report and the file must be open in
FileMaker Pro Advanced. You can run a Database Design Report on
local or remote files.
2. Choose Tools menu > Database Design Report.
3. In the Available Files list, clear any files that you want to exclude
from the report by clearing the checkbox associated with the file.
4. If there are any files that contain tables that you want to exclude
from the report, select the file in the
Available Files list.
The tables in the file appear in the Include fields from tables in selected
file
list. You can then deselect any table in the list.
By default, all tables in all selected files are reported.
Database Design Report dialog box
